In a rice field on the road leading up to Homi-ga-oka (Homi hill) there
is a brand new billboard advertising the Emirates airline.
Recently the Emirates cancelled their flights from neighboring Nagoya
to Brazil via Dubai. The billboard announces that the airline now only
operates between Osaka to Sao Paulo but offers a free bus connection
from Nagoya. The advert is written in Portuguese with no Japanese text.

Situated at the top of Homi-ga-oka is the Homi Public Housing Estate
which consists of over 40 apartment blocks, shops and schools. It is
divided into two sections, one was originally owned by the Government
funded Housing and Urban Development Corporation, the other section is
still rented through the prefectural government.
It was originally constructed in the 1970's as a suburb to Toyota City
and was intended for young Japanese families. Like most Public Housing
Estates in Japan today many of the residents are old age pensioners,
some of whom live alone. Many of the apartments are uninhabited. The
Homi Public Housing Estate has a population of around 11,000 and more
than 4,000 of these are Brazilian immigrants. Consequently most of the
streets signs and shops use Portuguese.

Neighboring Toyota City, known as the Japanese Motown, was named after
the family run automobile company which was founded there before WW2.
The original buildings of the Toyota head quarters and factory gates
which can still be seen are over shadowed today by the Toyota Technical
Center and the many new office buildings. The city is tidy and
provincial, interspersed with large factories, subcontractors and car
show rooms most of which run along the route 248 connecting the city to
the main factory site.

In 1990, in the backdrop of an ever declining population in need of an
unskilled labour work force, the
Japanese government began to issue special long term resident permits
to descendants of Japanese emigrants. These were offspring to the many
thousands of Japanese who had emigrated to South America in the early
twentieth century.
A revision of Japan's strict Immigration and Refugee Recognition Act
made it legal to admit people of Japanese ancestry up to the third
generation together with their spouses. This scheme resulted in over
300,000 Brazilians moving to Japan, most of whom could not speak
Japanese. However language ability was not a hindrance for obtaining
work within the unskilled sections of the manufacturing industries,
work which they obtained through recruitment agencies and employment
brokers set up in Brazil.

These recruitment networks were often run by Brazilian Japanese and
operated under the guise of travel agencies offering flights to Japan,
assistance with permits, accommodation and access to unskilled
manufacturing jobs. In some cases they offered loans that would be
repaid after a period of work in Japan enabling even the poorest
Japanese Brazilians to emigrate.

The U.S financial crisis in 2008 and the declining value of the US
dollar badly effected the export industries in Japan, especially the
Automobile industry and precision manufacturers. For example, Toyota
City lost 30% of its tax revenues due to Toyota Automobile Company
losses. These circumstances led to hundreds of temporary contract
workers, including many Brazilians, being laid-off.

Brazilian workers have been publicly protesting these layoffs which are
effectively forcing thousands of migrant families who have invested
many years of there lives in Japan to return home. Finding alternative
work is almost impossible due to the language difficulties and some of
these workers have now lost their accommodation. At a recent
demonstration in Nagoya Aichi one of the participants was seen holding
up a sign exclaiming:"Please put us in the Homi Prefectural Public Housing!! 350
rooms".

Seen as a safe-haven by the protesters and a place where Brazillians
can live
without having to speak Japanese, the Homi Public Housing Estate houses
the largest
Brazilian community in the Aichi prefecture. However, despite the many
empty
apartments in the Homi Estate, the local government only allows a
limited number
of them on to the market each year as an apparent attempt to stave off
an escalating
influx of immigrants.

In April 2009 in response to the present situation the Japanese
Government initiated
a support program for unemployed foreigners of Japanese descent. It
offers 3.000
USD towards a plane ticket home (and 2000 USD for each additional
family member)
in exchange for an agreement to never return to Japan on a special
resident permit
again. The program even includes unemployed foreigners of Japanese
descent who
have already received their permanent resident status.